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Facebook Wins Belgian Court Appeal Over Storing Non-User Data (bloomberg.com)
Stephanie Bodoni, and Aoife White reporting for Bloomberg Technology (condensed):Facebook won an appeal against a Belgian privacy ruling that prompted the social network to prevent people without an account from accessing its site within the country. The Brussels Court of Appeal said the nation's data protection authority couldn't prevent Facebook from storing data from non-users in a fight over measures the technology giant says help it combat hacking attacks. "Belgian courts don't have international jurisdiction over Facebook Ireland, where the data concerning Europe is processed," the Brussels court of appeal said in a ruling Wednesday, referring to the company's European headquarters. The court also said there was no urgency to rule on the case since Belgian court proceedings only started in mid-2015 over behavior that started in 2012. Facebook is appealing a ruling that ordered it to stop storing data from people who don't have an account with the social network, or face a 250,000 euro ($277,800) daily fine. Willem Debeuckelaere, president of the Belgian data protection commission, said last year that Facebook's "disrespectful" treatment of users' personal data, without their knowledge, "needs tackling." Facebook said it can now start showing its pages to Belgians who aren't signed up to its service.
Allowing companies to pick and choose which country's laws to obey then make it stick for all of EU. I wish I could, but I'm only a citizen, not a corporation.
"Belgian courts don't have international jurisdiction over Facebook Ireland"
Then what is the purpose of the EU? I thought the whole idea was to have one big happy family.
"Belgian courts don't have international jurisdiction over Facebook Ireland, where the data concerning Europe is processed"
They may not have jurisdiction over other countries, but why can't they say if Facebook wants to do business IN Belgium, their data centers outside of Belgium must follow their rules?
I don't consider myself the paranoid type, but you're talking about a company that goes out of its way to create a profile of people who haven't signed up. What make you think that if you do sign up and put as little information on it as possible, that they will stop collecting information about you that you haven't put on it.
Access the site means access the user generated and service specific content. Although I have not followed recent developments on the privacy front in the EU, the last time I checked Facebook or any other company can store personally identifiable information just about anybody if they follow the rules concerning the use, storage, maintenance and processes around the information register. It should be nothing to do with jurisdiction, but if it is with the current rules, then the next step for the Belgians is the EU Court of Justice.